February 1993 (Vol. VI, No. 2)

BLESSINGS BE WITH YOU in the words of Mechtild of Magdeburg:

Make your heart crystal clear within

Sisters and brothers, listen. Make your heart crystal clear within. Your senses will be opened and your soul so transparent that you will see into the Love and Wisdom of God ... Spiritual persons who dwell on earth are offered two kinds of spirit: In this way two pure natures come together. The first is the flowing Fire of the Godhead; and the second is gradual growth and expansion of the loving soul.

~ Mechtild of Magdeburg

The simplicity of choosing to live a life of love

Increasingly, my intention is to make each day of a living prayer. I am finding that to go out of the darkness into light, I have only to be a little more kind, a little more gentle and loving to those around me, and to myself. It has been in showing love to myself that I have had the greatest difficulty. The simplicity of choosing to live a life of love, rather than a life of fear, is more clearly becoming a reality for me. The power of simply remembering God, and remembering that my true identity is love, has been beyond anything I could have imagined. Let us all join in love, and know that in sharing the thoughts of love and peace with one another we bring the miracle of light into the world.

~ from OUT OF DARKNESS INTO THE LIGHT by Gerald G. Jampolsky

What is the greatest kind of love?

What is the greatest kind of love?
Great love does not flow with tears.
Rather,
it burns in the great Fire of Heaven.
In this Fire
it flows and flows swiftly
yet all the while
it remains in itself
in a very great stillness.

~ Mechtild of Magdeburg

Your Self is love in action

Never become too holy or too spiritual. Let the Spirit align itself within you. Become what humanity can be. Nothing more and nothing less. There is no such thing as spiritual development or Higher Self or Greater Self or Lower Self. There is nothing to find, nowhere to go, nothing to reach up to. There is, however, LIFE, human life capable of Being itself. And that is already present in every moment of every day ... By relaxing very deeply and allowing your body to reach a point of stillness, the delicate strings of your Self will be found dancing with the deep current of love that is the Earth. This love is the dance of the still point in the open moment ... your Self is love in action.

~ from LEAVING MY FATHER'S HOUSE by Marion Woodman

The need is for a true silence which is alive and which carries a loving presence

There has to be enough communication so that silence can be a grace. That kind of silence demands a deeper love, and until that much love is developed, there is no point in pretending that the love is there when it isn't. The justification of silence in our life is that we love one another to be silent together ... In the depths of community life, we realize the grace of being silent together, but we don't arrive at this by excluding others or treating them as objects. It happens gradually as we learn to love ... The need is for a true silence which is alive and which carries a loving presence.

~ from THE SPRINGS OF CONTEMPLATION by Thomas Merton

Love will be manifested as a natural force

What we are called to is conscious harmony with the whole of earthly evolution in the dissemination of Love. In its very essence spiritual knowledge will be changed into Love ... The exterior knowledge of the universe will be interiorised in us. Love is Wisdom reborn from the Self. Love will be manifested as a natural force. This is the secret of all future evolution.

~ Rudolf Steiner

God's love enfolding us

A message was brought to me that a young woman who was dying had asked that I come visit her. She was fevered and emaciated; at first glance, a forbidding sight. Then I noticed her eyes -- huge and glowing, so incredibly beautiful I was entranced by them. All my embarrassment disappeared; all my searching about in my mind for some appropriate sanctimony became unnecessary. "What beautiful eyes!" I heard myself saying to her sister. She agreed saying that her sister had always had beautiful, glowing eyes. A silence fell upon us, and we were all three caught up in a wonderful joy. I knew, of course, what it was -- God's love enfolding us like lights from heaven.

~ from CONFESSIONS OF A TWENTIETH CENTURY PILGRIM by Malcolm Muggeridge

My arms are open

My arms are open. Come my Beloved
And rest upon my heart. It beats for You
And sings in joyous welcome. What am I
Except your resting place and your repose?

Your rest is mine. Without You I am lost
In senseless wanderings that have no end,
No goal, no meaning, on a road that goes
In twisted byways down to nothingness.

Come now, my Love and save me from despair.
The Way, the Truth, the Life are with me then.
The journey is forgotten in the joy
Of endless quiet and your kiss of peace.

~ from THE GIFTS OF GOD by Helen Schucman

Entering into the realm of love

If we "detach ourselves" from creatures such as human values, charisms, goods, if we do not use them in a domineering way, these creatures remain free. Our liberation therefore constitutes the liberation of creatures. Human energies and values, once liberated from abuse, can now enter into the realm of love. Entering into the sphere of love, both human beings and creatures remain within the process of DIVINIZATION, because God is Love.

~ from THE SILENCE OF MARY by Ignacio Larranaga

We shall harness for God the energies of love

The day will come when, after harnessing space,
the winds, the tides, and gravitation,
we shall harness for God the energies of love.
And on that day,
for the second time in the history of the world,
we shall have discovered fire.

~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Love shows itself in action

Our love should not be just words and talk; it must be true love, which shows itself in action.

~ 1 John 3:17-18